Here are some of the packing tips that we use as a family of four, with a toddler and a baby, to ensure that we take as few bags as possible.
- Leave the suitcases at home, take backpacks or rucksacks
For travel trips and especially with children, backpacks are one hundred times easier. Especially if you’ve never visited your destination before, wheeled suitcases don’t perform well on cobbled or uneven paths so your 20kg bag could feel like it weighs a lot more. Save the hassle and put your bag on your back and leave your hands free for carrying other things or wrangling the kids!
We look for these things when buying our bags:
– Main compartments that zip open most of the way down the length of the bag. This makes finding things SO much easier, especially if you’re moving on from place to place and don’t want to be constantly unpacking and repacking or if you’re sharing a bag with someone.
– Rucksacks with removable day bags are a winner. Especially if you’re doing longer travel adventures, you’ll want a day bag for day trips, hikes, bringing food shopping back if your self catering etc. Having. Day bag that can zip onto your main bag will mean there’s one less thing to have to carry on move days.
– Straps. You don’t want to be lumbering your back with the weight of your bag for the miles that you’ll be trudging it around. A bag with a waist strap is definitely a must. You’ll take some of the weight off your back and spread the load more evenly. You can thank me later.
– Pockets. Pockets are one of the best ways to get more stuff into your bag and to keep it organised. When travelling with just a standard backpack, we opt for one with loads of different compartments that can keep clean clothes away from dirty and electronics away from cosmetics. No one wants a suncream explosion all over their laptop or to have to wash all your clothes because the jumper that you wore yesterday in the rain has made all your clothes smell damp.
– Comfort. This often gets overlooked, especially if you see a great discount online or a bag that everyone’s been raving about on Instagram comes back into stock. Pause. Go to one, two or ten hiking shops and try bags out. Most shops will have weights or will allow you to put things into the bags to check how they feel when they have weight in them. Once you’ve found a good, comfy bag then you can go online looking for the best deals on it. If going to lots of different shops fills you with dread, order a selection of bags and try them out at home but remember to put things in them to really test out how comfy they are. Then return any you don’t like. This also gives you a good indication about how big the bag is in real life. A 30L bag might sound like it holds a lot until it’s in front of you. - Ditch the packing cubes!
This might be a bit of a controversial one but we don’t rate packing cubes! We much prefer to roll and then stuff clothes in over getting bulky cubes into a bag. Especially if you’re using a rucksack, we find that stacking packing cubes into a bag equals lots of annoying, dead space. - Roll, don’t fold clothing
If you’re tight on space, rolling clothes definitely helps. You can fit so much more in this way! - Pack underwear, socks, swimwear and pjs last
We like to start off with trousers, t-shirts, and other larger items when packing and save underwear, or anything that you don’t mind getting creased, into all of those little spaces. This is particularly useful if you’re using a rucksack or if you are tight on space. - Wear bulky items, if you can
If you’re able to wear your big jumper, jeans and hiking boots on your travel days, do! By taking the most bulky items out of your rucksack, you’ll be able to save stress when packing and you might even have room for one or two travel buys along the way. Obviously if the weather in Thailand is going to be 35 degrees, jeans and a big jumper might be a little problematic when you leave the air-conditioned airport. Instead, opt for tying your jumper around your waist to save space in your bag. - Stay away from vacuum pack bags!
Whilst they sound amazing and you’ll be able to fit so much more in your bags, vacuum pack bags can be a real nightmare and I’ve made the mistake before, big time! I packed a 30kg bag for a year in Australia full of vacuum pack bags and extra clothes shoved in every gap imaginable. When I arrived, I opened the bags and then surprise, surprise, the clothes would not go back into my bag. I naively assumed that everywhere would have a vacuum – I was young and had never travelled for a long period before. Needless to say, vacuums most definitely aren’t available everywhere so I ended up offloading clothes into my partner’s bag and unfortunately having to bin things too! - Be savvy with liquids
We travel quite simply and don’t use that many liquid products but even still, those rigid bottles take up so much space! We try to take as few liquids as possible and we opt for either buying liquids locally when we arrive (if we’re staying for more than a week) or we’ll pack liquids from home in dispenser bags as they take up so much less space . - Invest in a hanging toiletry organiser
These help to keep all of your liquids organised and in one place. We’d definitely recommend getting one with a hook that can be attached to the back of a door too! They help prevent mishaps with liquids leaking – no one wants their suncream exploding all over their clothes! We also keep our medical supplies, hairbands, toothbrushes etc. in ours to keep everything nice and organised. - Take carabiner clips
We NEVER do a travel trip without carabiner clips. They are SO helpful and we take a variety of sizes everywhere we go. They’re amazing for attaching water bottles or hats onto bags. Let me paint a picture… you have a shower before going to the airport but when you go to pack, your towel is still wet! Do you risk your whole bag smelling damp by the time you’ve spent hours getting to your next destination? No! Use a carabiner to attach your towel to your bag and allow it to dry without risking all of your clothes. Likewise if you’re jumping on a bus or train to your next destination and just don’t fancy wearing those bulky hiking shoes again, wear your sandals and pop your hiking boots in a plastic bag and attach them onto your bag so you don’t have to carry them. We attach carabiners to everything: our main bags, day bags, child carriers, pram. We use them everywhere!
Obviously just be mindful that when flying, you might want to remove carabiners and anything they’re holding to prevent losing it! - Store water bottles to the outside of your bags
Linking with the tip above, store your water on the outside of your bag. I know lots of bags have pockets designed for water bottles but if you’re tight on space, you might’ve utilised it for something else! If you’re clever, you can use a carabiner to attach your water bottle somewhere on your bag that means you can access it without having to take your bag off too. Winner! - Remember to take plastic bags
A couple of plastic bags are a must when travelling. We use them to store dirty clothes or cover dirty shoes. They also come in handy when popping down to a shop to buy a few bits and bobs or even to put your packed lunch in for a day trip to prevent your banana from mushing all over the jumper that you packed incase it gets cold. If you get travel sick and are going on a boat, bus or taxi, its also wise to have one to hand just in case! - Tumble drier sheets
Worried about your bag or clothes smelling after a few weeks of travel? Add a couple of tumble drier sheets inside your bag to keep it feeling fresh. This tip will literally last weeks to months! If you have space, add a few more into a tightly sealed ziplock bag so you can switch them when they start to lose their scent. - Microfibre towels
For backpacking or long term travel these are a game changer! Traditional towels, albeit warm and fluffy, take up so much space and take hours to dry. Microfibre towels fold up tiny, hold way more water and they dry in a fraction of the time. They’re a no-brainer. We always pack some, even if you’re staying at an AirBnb that says it has them. You don’t want to be forced to use a towel that doesn’t look clean and on the bright side, if all’s good with your accommodation’s towels, you can use yours for the pool, beach or to wipe your forehead on long hikes. Sand also doesn’t stick to them – winner! - Take a photo of your passport and other important documents.
I don’t mean a picture of the front of your passport, I mean the page with all of your information on it. Lots of places nowadays want to take a copy of guests passports or even to keep them until you check out. If this fills you with dread, sending over a copy of your information might save you being parted from your passport. It can also be used as ID in some (although not all) places.
Having a photo of your passport will also mean that you have access to your passport number in the unfortunate event that your passport gets lost or damaged badly. This can help if you have to go to an embassy to get another.
We also do this with driving licences and other documents too! You never know when you might need them! - Take an extension cord
Some places are sparse on plug sockets and if you’re travelling to lots of different places within your trip, you might not want to take lots of different adapters so here’s a solution for you. Take two adapters (we like the multi adapters – one investment for all of your travels) and an extension cord. Not only does it help when the outlets are miles away from where you want to charge your devices but also, it. Means you don’t need loads of adapters.
You do have to be careful in some places not to overload the sockets though. Having eight appliances plugged into the same socket can be problematic, especially in places like South America and south east Asia. We tend to take an extension cord with four plug points and we only fill it during times when we’re in if we suspect that the electrics might not be as strong. Whilst travelling, we tend not to leave anything plugged in whilst we are out as a general rule. - Pack lots of light layers
Great for changing seasons or multi country travel trips, layers will be your best friend. If necessary, consider spending more on base layers or thermals if you’re going somewhere chillier. With layers, you shouldn’t need many big thick jumpers so this can also save you space in your bags.
For warmer weather, packing lightweight long or three quarter sleeved shirts can provide your skin some restate from the sun. We also pack lots of similar colours so you can mix and match items to make lots of different outfits easily.
If you’re going to Asia or anywhere where you might want to go inside temples, you’ll need some more conservative clothing, often that covers your knees. Consider buying these away. In Vietnam we managed to pick up some lightweight trousers to visit Angkor Wat for less than $1 (about 50p). There was no way we could’ve got something in the UK that cheap and they were readily available in markets. - Extras that we always carry:
– a deck of cards for entertainment, especially handy for delayed flights.
– a medical kit with plasters, antiseptic wipes, a couple of larger dressings, bug spray and bite relief
– a doorstop can provide good security for solo or female travellers. Simply use the doorstop on a closed hotel room or hostel room door (obviously if it’s just you or a group that you know) and it’ll prevent anyone from coming into your room. It also helps to prevent curious toddlers from being able to wander!
– a pencil (and sharpener) and a small notepad. We take a pencil over a pen as it won’t explode all over our stuff if it gets hot! There are lots of times when you might want to jot something down – shopping lists, directions, dates and times etc and you might not have your phone or you might be conserving battery so a pencil is a great bet!
– a portable charger – great for charging your phone or other devices on the go. Be warned though, some countries don’t allow them. Ours was confiscated and disposed of when we visited China.
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